phono brainer

Lyrics

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I am just a kid
my name is Etwonne James
they call me generation z and other stupid names
my friends are quite entitled and they all like to complain
but me I think I have a different problem

is online life so sweet?
I taste a bitter pill
I see right through the fakeness
and I know I always will
my so-called friends are puzzles whose integrity is nil
and I haven't got a clue how to solve them

I miss the good old days that I'm too young to know
a world before technology is where I'd like to go
back to the 1980's when the pace of life was slow
when minds were simple and the love was tainted

the music of my time, it really really stinks
it might make me kind of dance but it can't make me think
the beats are carbon copies and the lips are all in sync
with burning houses they are not aquainted

the sun was going down, I was walking in the park
I saw a sad old lonely man just sitting in the dark
his frame was gnarled and twisted, bent over in an arc
and on his hip he had an ancient walkman
I tried to hurry past but he caught me by the arm
he pulled his bulky headphones off as I grew quite alarmed
"Relax," he said, "I'm old and grey and I mean you no harm . . .
but I think I've got an answer to your problem . . ."

he levelled me with naked eyes that time seemed to pass through
he handed me a rusty key and said "Room 42."
he pointed to a building , then disappeared from view
and I was left there standing in confusion
I don't know how I started but I'm walking in the hall
up creaking stairs with old wallpaper peeling from the wall
I find the numbered doorway but I hear no sound at all
I hope they will forgive a small intrusion

The door is rather sticky so I give the key some twists
it opens up a crack and I can see into the midsts
the room was filled mixing boards and dusty vintage synths
and 17 old tape machines from heaven
I invoke Dolby's name, and push open the door
my footsteps turn up clouds of dust that billow on the floor
a few dim shafts of light with motes suspended evermore
like nothing had seen the light of day since 1984

I saw a note weighed down by a piece of plexiglass
I picked it up and read the words, my mind was blowing fast

"If you have come this far," it said, "then it has come to pass
the future we all hoped for didn't happen
your world is filled with terminal Industrial Disease
elite opressive paradigms and broken guarantees
your food supply is toxic and your music is feces
and you're running out of niceties to crap in

recoiling from the horror of your new frontier
the crossroads of technology and art have made it clear
the ghost in the machine turned out to be a financier
but weary traveller I have got your tonic
since you've come this far, I will give you what you sought
a coded joyful message from the land that time forgot
just dust off this old floppy disk and put it in the slot
and power up the keyboard named ENSONIQ."

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